News from the Votemaster

Expanded Graphs Now Available

The density of polls was getting so high that the graphs of polls over time had become unreadable for the swing states.
Starting today, if you click on a state, the page you get has three graphs: polls for all of 2008, polls for Sept. to Nov. 2008,
and polls for 2004. The Sept. to Nov. 2008 polls have a linear regression line plotted based on a least-squares calculation
with a look-back window of 30 days.
In addition, the
page
with all the poll graphs now has two versions: the full year and Sept. to Nov. (with regression lines).

The Vice-Presidential Debate

Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin faced off in their first and only Vice-Presidential debate last night,
each one claiming to be the champion of the middle class. The debate was
cordial but pointed,
with each of them clearly attacking the other party's positions, but not each other.
At the beginning, Palin asked permission to call
him "Joe," which he granted. This made her seem folksy. But he didn't take the bait and always referred to her as
"governor" to sound respectful and avoid insulting women.

Biden was clearly in command of the material,
as one might expect from someone who has been in the Senate 36 years. Palin was shakier, but not as bad
as in the interview with Katie Couric. She often avoided answering questions and didn't get any follow-up questions
from moderator Gwen Ifill as she did from Couric.
For example, when Ifill asked her what she'd do about the mortgage crisis,
she said: "Let's commit ourselves--just everyday American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the
nation--I think we need to band together and say, 'Never again.'" She didn't explain how hockey moms could
get together to prevent a financial crisis.
If you missed the debate or want to see it again, the Washington Post has the full
video
available.

The bottom line is that Vice-Presidential debates are fun to watch but don't really matter. The greatest line in
any Vice-Presidential debate in history was surely Lloyd Bentsen's 1988 reply to Dan Quayle's comparing himself to
President Kennedy:
"I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."
But it didn't help. The Dukakis/Bentsen ticket was crushed by a Bush/Quayle landslide.

The first polls of the Vice-Presidential debate are already in.
A CNN
poll
run by Opinion Research shows that 51% of the voters think Joe Biden did the best job at the debate
and 36% thought Sarah Palin did the best job. As to beating the expectations (which both parties were
trying furiously to set as low as possible), both did. Eighty-four percent said Palin did better than
expected and 64% said Biden did better than expected. But debating skills and beating artificially low expectations
don't really matter. What matters is whether the candidate is qualified to be President should the need arise.
On this score, Biden clearly won as 87% said Biden is qualified to be President and only 42% said Palin is.

CBS also did a quickie
poll
among uncommitted voters.
In this one, 46% said Biden won and only 21% said Palin won. In terms of being knowledgeable about the issues,
98% think Biden is and 66% think Palin is. On the key question of whether the candidate could be an effective
President, 91% said Biden could be and only 44% said Palin could be, similar to the CNN poll.

CNN ran a
focus group
in Ohio, where participants could rate what they were hearing in real time. Biden's score zoomed through the roof
when he talked about his wife and daughter dying in a traffic accident many years ago. In general, his responses
scored well, better than Palin's, especially when she defended McCain. Republican pollster Frank Luntz ran a focus
group for Fox and said that Palin did very well. But only three members of his group said they were more
likely to vote for McCain as a result of the debate.
Political Wire
has collected some reactions to the debate from the blogosphere.

With Palin's qualifications for the presidency much in doubt,
when the mud begins the fly (e.g., when Republicans beging airing ads about Wright, Ayers, and Rezko), the Democrats may
try to exploit fears about Palin becoming President by running ads like
this one.
Nominally, it is only about McCain not releasing his medical records, but the message is pretty clear.

McCain Pulling Out of Michigan

Politico
reports
that McCain is closing down his campaign in Michigan, terminating his TV ads, and moving his staff there
to Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida. If true, this is a major development. Michigan is one of only two Kerry
states McCain has any realistic chance of winning (the other being New Hampshire). If Obama wins all
the Kerry states, as now seems likely, and wins Iowa and New Mexico, both of which are almost in the bag
for him, he needs only one more state to win. That means McCain must win all the swing states: Florida,
Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, and Nevada. Obama is leading substantially in a number
of them. McCain does not have a statistically significant lead in any of them.

House to Vote on Bailout Today

The
whips are out
rounding up stray votes as both the Democratic leadership and Republican leadership
want the Senate bailout bill to be approved by the House today.
The bill started out at 3 pages, but is now
451 pages.
But the additional pages just add pork and a tad of oversight. The core idea--the secretary of the treasury gets $700 billion
over time to buy whatever assets he wants to at whatever price he wants to from whomever he wants to--is still intact.
The taxpayers may get something in return for their money, but what they get is entirely up to the discretion of the treasury
secretary. These points notwithstanding, it is
expected
that enough pork has been added to the bill (448 pages is a lot of pork) to buy off
a net of 13 representatives, so the bill will probably pass, albeit with some procedural wrangling.

Americans' interest in this bill has reached unprecedented levels. Not only is it
impossible
to get through to your representative on the phone to give him or her guidance on how to vote, but even e-mails are being
rejected because the House e-mail system can't handle the load. It is a sorry state of affairs that just when Americans are
paying attention to Congress, they can't get through to their representatives because the phone and e-mail systems don't work.

September Saw the Biggest Job Loss in Five Years

The government
reported
that 159,000 jobs were lost in September, the largest number lost in a single month in five years.
Just two weeks ago, John McCain
said:
"The fundamentals of our economy are strong."
Between heavy job losses and a shinking 401(k) retirement fund, the average voter is likely to need some convincing that all is
well with the economy, especially when respected economists like Paul Krugman think we are on
edge of the abyss.

Today's Polls

We have nine presidential polls today.
Three of them are a bit surprising. SurveyUSA has John McCain ahead of Barack Obama
in Minnesota 47% to 46%. Most other polls have shown Obama with a wide lead there.
Similarly, a poll by Ciruli Associates in Colorado shows it to be statistical tie
when pretty much all other polls have shown Obama to be ahead there, albeit by a
small margin. Finally, in Virginia, Mason-Dixon gives McCain a 3-point lead there,
when everyone else says Obama is ahead. Also of note is Obama's continuing strength
in North Carolina. McCain is supposed to be 10 points ahead here. An ominous sign
for him.